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The Electrical and Mechanical Services Department (EMSD), has teamed up with key industry players from various sectors for four years in a row to organise the E&M Safety Campaign, one of the largest public education campaigns in the territory.

With the aim of enhancing the community's awareness of safety and good practices in the use of electrical appliances and installations, gas appliances, lifts and escalators as well as the importance of energy efficiency, the E&M Safety Campaign 2004 features a line-up of publicity and community activities.

"In the past four years, we have been conducting E&M safety publicity programmes and we note that the campaign is well received by the community," the Director of Electrical and Mechanical Services, Mr Roger Lai Sze-hoi said.

"It represents a collaborative effort between EMSD and 16 leading local organisations from the utilities, public transport, housing and trade associations," Mr Lai said.

Mr Lai noted that one of the key events of the campaign, E&M Safety Carnival, attracted about 10,000 participants last year, it was therefore decided to extend the carnival into a two-day event for maximum impact. This year the carnival will be staged at the Piazza, Kowloon Park, Tsim Sha Tsui, on October 23 and 24.

We believed that children and the younger generation should be the primary target of the campaign, so we retained the slogan "E&M safety and energy efficiency begin with little things" as the theme of the campaign this year, Mr Lai said.

A series of educational day camps, the first of its kind, will also be organised for primary students from November to December. A fresh and lively approach will be adopted in conducting the students day camp to effectively convey the messages to the teenagers.

The campaign also featured a wide range of community and publicity programmes including a comics drawing competition on energy efficiency, an e-Card design competition on gas safety and a volunteers' home visit programme on electrical safety.

Concurrently, EMSD has run a series of promotions on television and radio, and in newspapers and different modes of public transport to convey the messages throughout the territory.

Ends/Friday, October 22, 2004

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